Professor Alex K.-Y. Jen

Alex Jen is currently the Boeing-Johnson Chair Professor and Chair of the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is also serving as the Founding Director for the Institute of Advanced Materials for Energy at UW. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984 under the tutelage of Prof. Michael Cava.

Dr. Jen’s research interest is focused on utilizing molecular, polymeric and biomacromolecular self-assembly to create ordered arrangement of organic and inorganic functional materials for photonics, opto-electronics, nanomedicine, and nanotechnology. He has co-authored more than 500 publications, given over 350 invited presentations, and has >16,000 citations and a H-index of 66. He is also a co-inventor for more than 50 patents and invention disclosures.

For his pioneering contributions in organic photonics and electronics, he was elected as Fellow by several professional societies including MRS, ACS, PMSE, OSA, SPIE, and AAAS. Because of his contributions in science & engineering, he has been appointed as the Changjiang Endowed Chair by the Chinese Ministry of Education, as the World Class University Professor by the Korean National Research Foundation, and recently elected as an Academician by the Washington State Academy of Sciences.